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This blog post was inspired by Saturday Night Live’s, Really!?! with Seth and Amy.

We receive inquiries on a regular basis asking about unsolicited emails received from self-proclaimed SEO experts. This topic has come up in previous blog posts of ours over the years but since you may not be a devoted fan of our blog let me just cut the suspense and fill you in about these types of emails—they’re complete scams; if you receive one promptly delete and add the sender to your blocked sender list.

Take this real example of an email received by an unsuspecting small business:

A quick look at your website’s home page [a community bank] reveals the need for optimization for better rankings. Your website has a total link popularity score of 505, which is low, and is poor on Google and Bing/MSN and weak on Yahoo. In comparison, Wells Fargo has a popularity score of 672,016 and Bank of America, 1,004,188 . . . Please reply to this email or call me to set up a meeting to learn more and MSI will provide a free website analysis, a $300 value.

Really!?! Does this email really have any logic or legitimacy to it or are these guys just one of the many scammer predators prowling the Internet? Consider the following:

Comparing a small community bank with two branches to some of the largest banks in the world? Really!?!

“Popularity score of 505” . . . really!?! Given the your logic as demonstrated above why should we give any credibility to a “popularity score” that you made up? Why wouldn’t we want to use the free and reliable Page Rank score provided by Google? Really!?!

“Free website analysis, a $300 value,” Really!?! Is that the same exact free website analysis that anyone can get by simply typing in “site:http://mydomain.com” in Google or using any of the free (and legitimate) Website tools provided by Google?

And the biggest Really!?! of all . . . if you’re company is so darn good as SEO why are you looking for sales using the most desperate and bottom-feeder method of all, Spam! Really!?!